Where it all began...

"In the late summer of 2007 I was having a net with my "coach" and good friend Dave Madden. As always I was looking for ways to improve my game and said something along the lines of "front foot game is looking a little better..." A raised eyebrow later and the conversation had moved swiftly on, specifically to the subject of team selection. As 1st XI captain at Brooklands Cricket Club, it was Dave's responsibility to select the team each week. We began to talk about the system in use and it quickly became clear it was hard work. At the time, players were sent a text message each week asking if they could play the following weekend. Many people wouldn't know whether they were available when they received the text, or would not have the time to reply straight away. As such, it could easily be forgotten. If you didn't respond to the message arrived it was very easy to forget. The same problem existed with phoning players. What was needed was a system that a player could interact with in his own time, when he had a moment.

As the conversation continued, further problems quickly became evident. With the text message system, Dave could only see his players' availability one week ahead. Arranging cup dates and looking to key fixtures was difficult, as he only had a vague idea of who would be available from his squad. If he could see availability for a few weeks, he could attempt to plan ahead. For the rest of the club this was even more important. With Brooklands fielding five senior teams, tough decisions often had to be made about selection, with some people ultimately disappointed. Being able to see availability for future weeks would ensure the strongest teams possible were fielded, while also ensuring every member played as much as possible.

Aside from the inherent issues in the system, there was also the small matter of administering it. Not only did all the texts have to be collated, but someone would also have to ring everyone that hadn't replied. Having captained the lacrosse team when I was at university, I was well aware of how much time this took and how often a few people bore the brunt of the work. Equally, once the teams had been selected, each player would need to be informed of his selection. Given the numbers involved, this news of selection was also delivered by text message. Ideally, the club then needed to know the player had received the message to ensure he would turn up! This meant another text message from the player to confirm he was definitely playing and the subsequent ringing round to those that didn't reply. Fairly painful to think about, never mind undertake! Fundamentally, the process involved a huge amount of work from start to finish each week for the five captains and selection committee.

This is where the idea for Clubhouse was born. It was obvious there had to be a better way. We needed a system that operated in the background but easily came to the fore when players needed to interact with it. At this point in the conversation I remarked to Dave "We could do this all online you know". Another raised eyebrow followed and it was pretty much left at that. Unbeknown to me, Dave then put this idea before the club committee. He explained that players would be able to state their availability, and captains then collaboratively select teams via the web. Players would also then be able to confirm their selection online. The committee unanimously voted to pursue the idea. To my surprise, Dave returned to me a few weeks later and gave me the go ahead for the idea, to which my reply was "For what?"

Being in the fortunate position of running a software house, I naturally began to look around for something to do the job. Why build something if someone else already had? To my surprise, no one had. There were some offerings out there, but nothing up to the standard I would want or my clients at QMTech had come to expect. As a software engineer, I wanted to build something truly flexible that could be used for any sport. Search over, I began to spec out the requirements of Clubhouse with Dave in late 2007.

After two months of intensive software development at QMTech, a beta version of Clubhouse was ready for the start of the 2008 cricket season. Six months later, Brooklands had picked teams for over 100 fixtures and Clubhouse had already been hailed as a great success by the entire club. By now, several other clubs had expressed a desire to use Clubhouse. We were off and running..."

Where it's all going...

"With hundreds of clubs now managing thousands of players using Clubhouse, the problem I set out to solve remains relatively unchanged. Fundamentally, Clubhouse is about facilitating the process of team selection. It is a piece of software designed (as all software should) to be easy to use while being flexible enough to actually solve the problem rather than add to it. It is by this maxim that Clubhouse is developed and refined. As more and more clubs have come on-board, it has naturally become more difficult to satisfy everyone, with each club having its own ways of doing things. However features are only added to Clubhouse if they enhance the whole. Clubhouse is designed to be flexible and extensible, so your club can use it how you want to. This can be seen in the subtly different ways in which clubs use Clubhouse, some of which we never anticipated.

Clubhouse is a young product and far from finished. However, no software can ever work unless the balance between the system and its users is correct. Often, software tries to do far too much and adds to or complicates the problem, or is too restrictive and only can deal with a situation 90% of the time but not the rest. Equally, it has to be intuitive and act in a way a user would naturally expect. With your help I hope QMTech can continue to refine and improve Clubhouse and so reach the perfect balance."

Dan Quirk, Clubhouse Founder